President Biden, Much Like America, Is Waiting for the Black Woman to Fix It
President Weekend at Bernie’s is willing to sign his name to the group project knowing that he didn’t do any of the work.
Speaking during his trip to Tulsa, Okla., to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, President Biden handed the large task of protecting voting rights off to his vice president, Kamala Harris.
“Today, I’m asking Vice President Harris to help these efforts, and lead them, among her many other responsibilities,” Biden said, the New York Times reports. “With her leadership and your support, we’re going to overcome again, I promise you, but it’s going to take a hell of a lot of work.”
Maybe Biden thought he was doing the right thing by handing the highest ranking Black woman in the history of America the work of protecting Black voting rights on the anniversary of one of the worst racist attacks in American history. Biden told those gathered that he saw protecting voting rights as a fundamental way to ensure racial equity. But he might’ve wanted to look at Harris’ cookout plate as it’s already loaded with all kinds of tasks he’s passed on to Harris.
From the Times:
Ms. Harris has already been tasked with leading the administration’s efforts to deter migration to the southwestern border by working to improve conditions in the Northern Triangle countries of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. The vice president — who will visit Mexico and Guatemala next week — and her staff have worked to reframe expectations around her role, stressing that she will examine the root causes of migration, not single-handedly stop the flow of migrants to the United States.
Her Northern Triangle work comes in addition to a host of other engagements, including but not limited to: selling the “American Rescue Plan,” advocating Mr. Biden’s infrastructure package, representing women in the work force, highlighting the Black maternal mortality rate, assisting small businesses, assessing water policy, promoting racial equity, combating vaccine hesitancy, and fighting for a policing overhaul.
But Harris played the part of a good soldier, embracing the assignment and wondering, much like the group TLC, how many records is she going to be forced to produce.
“In the days and weeks ahead, I will engage the American people, and I will work with voting rights organizations, community organizations, and the private sector to help strengthen and uplift efforts on voting rights nationwide,” the vice president said, the Times reports. “And we will also work with members of Congress to help advance these bills.”
Also from the Times:
Known as the “For the People Act,” the bill is the professed No. 1 priority of Democrats this year. It would overhaul the nation’s elections system, rein in campaign donations and limit partisan gerrymandering. But after passing the House, it hit a wall of Republican opposition in the Senate.
One option for Democrats would be to ram the bill through on a partisan vote by further rolling back one of the foundations of Senate tradition: the filibuster. But at least one Democrat, Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, remains opposed to the idea, potentially scuttling it.
The Times notes that it isn’t just the work of trying to protect voting rights across the country; it’s having to work with a divided Senate that houses a bizarro GOP that’s totally fine with insurrection.
“I hear all the folks on TV saying, ‘Why doesn’t Biden get this done’?” the president said. “Well, because Biden only has a majority of effectively four votes in the House and a tie in the Senate, with two members of the Senate who vote more with my Republican friends,” an obvious dig at Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, another moderate Democrat.
When it comes to saving the world, much like America, Biden has left that work to the Black woman, the backbone of the Democratic Party and the reason he’s in office today. It seems that Harris’ reward for doing good work is more work, and honestly, I don’t know if I would have it any other way as I don’t trust Biden to handle my Chipotle order, much less the country.
